ExpanDrive 1.3 Beta – Funnest Version Yet!

Fans of Magnetk‘s ExpanDrive — a great SFTP client for OS X — should definitely go out and grab the latest beta (1.3) of this fine application. For starters, they support plain-ol’ FTP (and FTP/SSL) which, though insecure, is still used in many, many hosting outfits. The developers also tapped into the magic of OS X system notifications and the application does a much better job of detecting a lost (or reconnected) internet link, system sleep/wake events and IP address changes (which is literally an option equivalent to manna from heaven for those of us on 3G cards in metropolitan areas).

While Magnetk has made great strides in their support of FTP, anyone who has ever tried writing an FTP client knows that not all FTP servers are made equal. If you give the beta a try, but are having difficulty, make sure you take them up on their generous offer:

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If you have an ftp server that ExpanDrive can’t connect to and you can give us a login to that server, then we’ll send you a generous ExpanDrive coupon for your trouble.

I feel obliged to point out, though, that if you can’t use the application to connect to your FTP server, having a free version of it will not do you much good.

ExpanDrive runs on OS X 10.4+ as a Universal Binary and will set you back US$29.00 should you decide to purchase it.

I’ve been running ExpanDrive since it was in pre-release form and this update will really improve my workflow. Give the new beta a go and let me know what you think.

The one advantage that I have seen for EpanDrive over MacFusion is the auto remounting after sleeping or some other network interruption. By installing the latest MacFUSE from google and adding ‘-o auto_cache’ to the advanced options for my sshfs mounts I have the same caching behavior in MacFusion that I liked in ExpanDrive.

I have not compared how ExpanDrive deals with TextMate and large remote projects, but it is not usable in MacFusion. If ExpanDrive does that well I might have to pony up.

@MacRat – Fugu is a great SFTP/FTP client, but doesn’t let you mount SFTP/FTP as a drive. ExpanDrive builds directly into Finder, Textmate, etc

@Rubin110 & @KhÃ¼rt – We’ve got a full custom FTP/SFTP stack, try it out. It is MUCH more responsive, it stays connected between sleep/wake sessions, over access point changes. It doesnt’ beachball. It makes editing a large project practical.